To the Editor:Snohomish taxpayers on July 24th won a small victory over wasteful spending and a lack of transparency at City Hall.
At a June 20 council workshop involving the 1910 and 1968 buildings at 105 Cedar Ave., only the private “Carnegie Educational Center” members were allowed to speak to staff and council. At the behest of the Center’s president, Melody Clemans, the council decided on option 2 (essentially, the old 2011 Carnegie Master Plan with the exception the city taxpayers will now foot the multi-million dollar bill instead of the education center). Option 2 involves destroying the historic 1968 building and replicating the 1910 building to its mint condition for the educational center.
The members of the separate 105 Cedar Avenue Foundation participated in a brainstorming session on July 24th with the City’s project managers, Steve Schuller and Denise Johns. We presented the City with some exciting new ideas for both the 1910 and 1968 buildings, including reducing the carbon foot at with sustainable “green remodeling” while not gouging the taxpayers with redundant uses for the 2 buildings.
The good news is that the City has now opened up a new public involvement process for all the 105 Cedar Avenue properties, essentially “starting over”.
At the next city council meeting a discussion item on the Carnegie properties will be on the agenda. Mr. Schuller will ask the Council to authorize a construction engineer to evaluate all the options with a cost benefit analysis and a council final decision in 2018.